yet, see if I don't. You stay right
on here and you'll be making big money yet." (Minnie--eleven years in
her last job--fourteen dollars a week now.) Anyway, one morning he
came up--and that morning foot presses of every description had lost
all fascination for me--and he said, "You still want a power press?"

"Bet your life I do!"

And he gave me a power press deserted that morning by one of the boys.
Life looked worth living again. All I had to do to work miracles was
press ever so lightly a pedal. The main point was to get my foot off
it as quick as I got it on, or there was trouble. I wasn't to get my
fingers here or there, or "I'd never play the piano in this life." If
the belt flew off I wasn't to grab it, or I'd land up at the ceiling.
For the rest, I merely clamped a round piece on the top of a nail-like
narrow straight piece--the part that turned the lamp wick up and down.
Hundreds and thousands of them I made. The monotony did not wear on me
there; it was mixed with no physical exertion. I could have stayed on
at the brassworks the rest of my life--perhaps.

One night I was waiting at a cold, windy corner on Fifth Avenue for a
bus. None came. A green Packard limousine whirled by. The chauffeur
waved and pointed up the Avenue. In a flash I thought, now if I really
were a factory girl I'd surely jump at a chance to ride in that green
Packard. Up half a block I ran, and climbed in the front seat, as was
expected of me. He was a very nice chauffeur. His mistress, "the old
lady," was at a party and he was killing time till 11.30. Would I like
to ride till then? No, I wanted to get home--had to be up too early
for joy riding. Why so early? The factory. And before I realized it
there I sat, the factory girl. Immediately he asked me to dinner any
night I said. Now I really thought it would be worth doing; no one
else I knew had been out to dine with a chauffeur. Where would he take
me? What would he talk about? But my nerve failed me. No, I didn't
think I'd go. I fussed about for some excuse. I was sort of new in New
York--out West, it was different. There you could pick up with
anybody, go any place. "Good Gawd! girl," said the chauffeur,
earnestly, "don't try that in New York; you'll get in awful trouble!"
All through Central Park he gave me advice about New York and the
pitfalls it contained for a Westerner. He'd be very careful about me
if I'd go out with him, any place I said, and he'd get me home early
as I s